What a Dark Tale We Weave
by Ropna
Summary: It's all fun and games when you're young. Running around in the snow, waking up to a Christmas full of presents or a coin under your pillow. Nobody cares that you believe. It's cute, it's innocent, it'll go away. Except when it doesn't. That's my story. I'm that one who went crazy, the Not-A-Girl-Anymore who still believes. Because I can see them—and they don't care about me.
1. Don't Look

_I'm going to start this story by saying that I'm not crazy. No. Not _really_._

_But I may not be entirely sane, either._

_I guess it depends on who you ask, but since I'm telling this, we'll just assume I'm not crazy._

_Except I might as well be, because I can see things—_people_—who shouldn't even exist. I can see them._

_And they don't care about me._

Chapter 1

**Don't Look**

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"_Ace_, are you not ready yet?"

I wrapped the scarf around my neck until it bundled all the way up to my nose and pushed the door of my small, borrowed room open. My sister Claire was right outside, wearing that colorfully ugly sweater Mom got her last year.

She didn't look pleased.

"We were supposed to leave _ages_ ago!" Claire, who was ten and short for her age, flung her arms up in the air, pouting.

I shrugged, shouldering my messenger bag and closing the door behind me. "I'm ready now, puppycakes. Where's Leo?"

She adjusted her crocheted hat, identical to mine, and nodded toward the stairs. "Downstairs playing with his DS."

"Let's go get the miscreant."

Claire smiled showing a row of teeth missing two and jetted down the stairs at a speed that would make Mom swear. "Leo! She's ready!"

Two seconds later I heard my little brother yelling, "Stop! I haven't saved it!"

Fun.

Dad was sitting on the big couch next to the fireplace, reading something on his nook. He looked up, nodding in acknowledgement, but didn't say anything—he and Mom must have gotten into a fight again.

"Ace, tell her to stop!" Leo whined at me, all blue pleading eyes and sad face.

I sighed. What did I get myself into? "Let him save it first, Claire. Then we'll leave," I said. Claire looked offended, but dropped the thing on Leo's lap. I turned to him, "Don't cheat."

"_Hurry_," Claire let out, looking every bit like a tiny thug.

"There you are." I turned just in time to see Mom walking in from the kitchen. "Claire was about to have an aneurism waiting for you."

I smiled, if only because I could see it happening. "Patience is a virtue."

Mom bent down to adjust Leo's scarf as simultaneously batted her hands away and furiously pressed the buttons of the DS. "How would you know that? You don't have an ounce of patience, Audrey."

Fair point.

"Leo," I saw him stiffen with guilt. "That has to be the longest save ever. Turn that thing off. Don't you want to play in the snow?"

He scoffed like he very much _didn't_ want to, but turned the DS off anyway. "Fine, let's go."

Claire smiled so big I feared her face might break. That child was scary, honestly.

"Be back before the sun comes down, Audrey," Mom said behind us as the kids followed me to the door like ducks. She inspected all three of us to make sure we wouldn't freeze. "Are you sure you can handle the children?"

"_Mom!_" Both Claire and Leo exclaimed, even though Leo didn't want to come a second ago.

I rolled my eyes. "It's not the first time I take them out, Mom."

She fussed. "Yes, but it's so cold outside—and all that _snow_. This is not like home, Audrey. It could be dangerous, there could be lions or—"

"We're in Burgess, Mom—not in the middle of the Amazon. The pamphlet said it was safe. We didn't come all the way here to stay holed up in a rented cabin."

At least I didn't.

She sighed. Victory. "Be back for dinner."

I hugged her, the kids jumping with excitement behind me. I patted the bag where I had their ice skates and grinned at them. "Ready?"

They were out of the door so fast I was suddenly glad they were dressed in bright colors.

* * *

I was pretty sure it took us longer to get out of the rented cabin than to the frozen lake that seemed to be the main attraction of the little town.

I now sat watching Claire and Leo play on the ice, regretting not having brought extra blankets to put between my butt and the snow. I was freezing.

I smiled. A snow day.

We'd been in Burgess for a little over a week, come here because Dad thought it would be nice to spend Christmas in a place where it actually snowed—plus Uncle Tim (everybody has one of those, right?) said he would rent us his cabin for basically nothing.

Also, I'd suggested it.

In that short time, it had snowed twice, this being the third time. So I sat, and waited. And waited.

Leo waved at me as he wheezed past, barely avoiding another kid who had slipped and fallen. Claire was spinning out of control on the other end. Twirl, twirl, and—she righted herself and laughed.

The place was teeming with kids, sliding and throwing snowballs as their parents sat around, blissfully unaware.

_Soon_.

A wind blew, making those who weren't running about burrow deeper into their coats. The children slid faster, smiles wider. There he was.

I edged a little closer to the end of the blanket, my scarf sliding down a little, but otherwise kept myself in place. Normal. Still.

A boy.

Some of the kids turned when the guy landed, left by the wind in the middle of the frozen lake. They rushed to him, hands up, and he swirled out of their reach, gliding everywhere and leaving a slippery trail for the children to follow. He laughed, a sound so loud it sent the few birds that stayed through the winter flying. It rattled me on the inside.

The other adults didn't notice. Not even all the kids saw him, I could tell Leo and Claire didn't.

I watched him entranced, filled with energy, more and more until all I wanted to do was dash to the ice and join their chaos. _Enjoy_ their chaos.

But I just stayed in place, my eyes glued, my heart careening against my ribcage.

Claire was waving madly at me, a few feet from where the boy now stood sending slivers of swirling ice around the surface of the lake.

"Ace, aren't you going to come?"

I started to shake my head. No. No, I couldn't go there. I shouldn't.

I pushed up from the snow, moving on trembling legs and stepped on the ice without skates. I fell.

"Ace!"

Leo and Claire were at my side in a blink, laughing and worrying at the same time. I laughed with them.

"This is all _your_ fault," I said.

I clambered up, almost slipping twice before I managed to stand again. Then I patted my pants and, taking in a deep breath, let out the loudest, scariest roar I could.

Leo and Claire screeched, running away as if from a rabid dog. Good enough.

I ran after them in my inappropriate shoes, sure I would lose all my teeth before too long. "I will eat all your happiness!" I shouted after them and they replied with screams and more laughter.

I saw it too late.

Claire went left, skating gracefully away from me. Leo skated straight ahead, veering around children but right through _him_. And I was going in that same direction.

Except I wouldn't go through him. I _couldn't_.

My eyes widened as I tried frantically to stop myself, my arms waving wildly in the air. I was going too fast, the ice was too slippery.

I fell on my butt inches from his bare feet—I could even feel my nose going numb with how much colder it was around him.

I told myself I shouldn't look up, that I should act like he wasn't even there. But I didn't. He was so close, closer than any of the others had ever been and I just—I looked up. Straight into his ice blue eyes and his frowning face.

"Ace!" Leo slid toward me, kneeling down with his hands in my coat when he reached me. "You silly sister, you fell again."

He was looking at me, then at Leo. Then back at me. And every second I didn't look away was a second his face shifted into confusion. The wind stopped swishing about him, his white hair settling as he knelt down.

I could feel his breath freezing my cheeks. "You can see me."

Oh, no. No, no, no.

"What's wrong?" Leo was still next to me, clenching harder through layers of coats into my arm.

It came out of my mouth quieter than a whisper, nothing more than a breath of fog, "Jack Frost."

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A/N: So here it is. Chapter 1 of this new thing I started solely because I saw RotG yesterday and dear God who didn't leave being more a child after that movie? Maybe I'll even finish it!

This is going to get a lot darker, guys.

Comments? x


	2. How the Silence Beckons

Chapter 2

**How the Silence Beckons**

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North gestured wildly, almost knocking the train toy that one of the yetis, Alphonse, was working on. That chair was too small for that yeti, I could tell you that.

"Again on the naughty list, Jack. _Again_." He walked past the rows of frantic yetis and over elves to what I still called his 'playroom'. "I thought we'd talked about this. You're a Guardian now. You have to be—nice!"

I rolled my eyes behind his back, balancing my staff on one finger as I followed him. It was cold to the touch and little sparks flew where I held it. Ready to be used.

I wonder how Santa there would like for _winter_ to come _inside_.

"And what was that whole nonsense with that cold front? Snow in _South America_?"

Yeah, that was one of my best moments. "Just trying to bring the Christmas spirit, North." I leaned on the top of my staff. "What's so naughty about that?"

He frowned, and considering he was mostly eyebrows and beard, it made him look quite scary.

"It caused accidents, Jack! And it delayed my assistants," he huffed. "We have a lot of work to do before Christmas comes, you know that." Oh, here we went. "We have to make sure the children get put in the Nice or Naughty list, find out if they've moved, _where_ they've moved, their ages—we have to know if there are new children in the families!"

I opened my mouth, hoping that would stop his speech. No such luck.

"What, do you think those little glinting lights appear on the globe by themselves? I wish! We can't afford to leave a child out, Jack. And thanks to your little _stunt_, we might not have enough time to cover all of South America."

It was like the jolliest man on earth had eaten three bags of sour patches all at the same time. I sighed and hung my head. "Look, Santa, I didn't mean to interfere with your little spy party—I just wanted the kids to have some fun. They're always asking for snow down there, you know."

That seemed to soften him a bit. Talking about the kids always seemed to make North easier to handle, calmer. They were his—_our_ priority.

His frown returned only for a second. "Well, _don't _do it again during Christmas."

I nodded and smirked. "What about Easter?"

North smiled back, more naughty than nice himself just then. "Not my department."

He turned to his toys after a pause, messing with this little wooden ball that he seemed to be trying to disassemble. He'd been going at it for the past week, but it didn't look like he was making any progress to me.

I was about to ask why he didn't just smash it when something else occurred to me. A face.

"Hey, North."

He made a sound like he'd heard me but couldn't be bothered to speak. So loving, this Father Christmas.

"Have you ever…" I trailed off, suddenly not so sure I even knew what I was asking. I buried my hands in the pockets of my hoodie. "Do you know of any adults that can still see us?"

He made another indecipherable sound.

"You know, like a teenager or something?"

He tinkered with the wooden ball a little more before answering. "That's not possible, Jack." He grunted, trying to pull the ball apart as if it had two pieces, but it was just one. "Adults, even the younger ones, stop believing in us at one point or another. Once they do that, they can't see us anymore."

"But _why_? What about the kids that have seen us? How can _they_ stop believing?"

North turned to me then, his attention ripped away from the ball. "They explain us away—they think they know more than when they were kids. They think we're nice childhood memories, but not real. And so their belief fades until its not there anymore."

I shivered, but it wasn't from the cold.

An elf came jingling into the room, holding a stack of papers bigger than himself. How he was balancing all that was more magic than mystery.

North took the stack of papers from him with a smile. "Thank you, Ram."

The elf shook his hat in response and left.

"Why do you ask, Jack?"

His question jolted me. "What?"

"About adults. Do you think someone older actually saw you?"

Yes? No? I wasn't sure anymore. I might have imagined it, that girl might have been looking at someone behind me. Except I'd been so sure, she'd said my name—but then she'd laughed like it was a joke, with that look of people who get hit by my snowballs and then go, _oh, it couldn't possibly be._

Maybe I'd just misunderstood the whole thing.

"No," I said to North, slouching like I didn't care. "I was just curious. Aren't you the one always going on about curiosity, after all?"

He smiled that jolly grin of Christmas cards. "Fine, fine thing curiosity is, yes."

When he turned back to his wooden thing I figured I'd been dismissed.

Staff on my shoulders, I wandered back into the toyshop where the yetis were. They seemed to keep this place afloat, their big, hairy hulks of creature hunched over delicate ballerinas or airplane machines or table games.

I went to the desk of a yeti I recognized and jumped on it, crouching to be at his level. He was putting together these tiny orange trucks, the size of Baby Teeth. I couldn't imagine what kind of kid would want to play with something so small—unless it exploded or something. That would be cool.

"Hey, Phil."

He made a series of sounds that I took to mean, 'How are you?'

I shrugged. "Alright. North just gave me a lecture about that thing in South America. Sorry about the extra work for you guys."

He grunted away, and I was almost sure I heard a laugh somewhere in there.

At the end, though, I was pretty certain he'd said something along the lines of, 'Not my division.'

I guess North was rubbing off on them.

* * *

The great thing about having the wind as a friend was that you could get from place to place in no time. The other great thing was, well, _flying_.

I soared over mountains, scaring flocks of birds as I flew.

Sometimes I just wanted to go fast enough to circle the world; other times I'd rather just float around, swaying until the wind left me somewhere. This time, though, I wanted neither of those things.

I careened around clouds, getting wet every time I went through one of them, zigzagging until I passed the sun and the sky turned dark.

I was floating over Burgess in no time, almost all the lights of my hometown turned off as the people slept. From where I was, I could only see two windows with lights still on. One of them was a hotel room and the other was a bar—almost like how this place used to be when I was alive.

I lay down on the lake—_The_ Lake—, its cold surface barely affecting my equally cold skin.

The stars where so bright here, so few lights obscuring the night sky. So silent.

"Hey, Pippa. You'll never guess what I did today."

There wasn't an answer, but I could almost see a childish face looking back from the stars, hear a voice prompting me to continue. A voice I liked to pretend sounded like my sister's.

"North summoned me to his base because he missed my face." Sort of. "And before I left I made this gigantic snowman in his room."

I let out a laugh and imagined I wasn't laughing alone.

"I hope he's in a good mood when he sees it, because it's going to be half melted." I smiled. That had been a darn good snowman, best I'd ever made, I thought. I blew air out of my mouth and it puffed like fog over my face. "What did you do today?"

Silence.

I guess that was the end of that conversation. Like always.

A buzzing sound came from my right and, before I could sit up, I had a hummingbird-like creature whizzing right in front of my face. One of the Baby Teeth.

"Hi there."

She was tiny and moving so fast I could barely see her, but I could hear her distinct chirping and chiming. She wanted me to come to Toothiana's palace.

I was getting _really_ good at understanding creatures that didn't even speak my language.

Too good, if you asked me.

"Is everything alright?"

She nodded her little head frantically and then motioned for me to follow her in distress. Well, those were some mixed signals right there.

I was about to go off with her when there was a rumble from the bushes around the lake. Shuffling, and then two laughing teenagers burst through, holding each other like they were drunk.

I stood still for a second, Baby Tooth pulling at my sleeve.

The teenagers plunked down inches by the lake and proceeded to giggle-convulse like they'd heard the funniest joke, even though neither of them had said anything. They couldn't see us.

I turned to Baby Tooth. "Ok, ok," I said, which made her stop trying to pull my weight forward. "I'm following."

She dashed away and I called the wind to go after her, leaving those two kids to their own hallucinations.

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A/N: Chapter 2, ladies and gentleman. Pretty fast if you consider my track record lol So, yes, from Jack's perspective-this might happen again in the future but, as of now, I'm **not** _planning_ on writing each chapter with alternating perspectives.

Thank you for all the lovely comments on the previous chapter.

Anyway, what did you think?


	3. Caged In

Chapter 3

**Caged In**

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Someone was laughing.

It was a high-pitched sort of laugh, like a child's, and it was all around. I could hear it on all sides, above and below—_inside_ me. I could feel it reverberating in my chest, but I wasn't laughing.

I wasn't.

A cold drop slithered down my back, tracing the route of my spinal cord. I wanted to sob, to scream, but I just stood there. Numb to anything that wasn't that small sensation.

_Oh, you alone, mad child_.

A squeal almost made it past my sealed lips. It was this again. Always this.

I tried to struggle, pictured myself ripping myself from a thousand invisible threads wrapped around me, imagined how I could overpower this thing that was over me. Nothing worked. Nothing ever did.

Tendrils touched my mind, soft, tender, then sharp. I didn't react.

_Still think it's worth it, don't you? Waiting?_

My gaze slipped away, unfocused, but I didn't mind. There wasn't anything to see in this cold, black hole.

I felt the threads tighten around me, warm blood dripping out where they cut into my skin. Not real. Not real.

_Isn't it, though? _

Not real. Not real. No.

No.

_I'm more real than your little friends, girl_, the voice seemed to chuckle, amused. _If you'd only let go—we could have such fun._

I whimpered inside my head, terrified.

Not real. No no. Help. Not real.

He sighed, a gush of air that pushed through my body and left me empty. Lonely.

_You are so boring when you get like this._

I was suspended in silence, left without feelings, for only a moment. Then came the fall.

Forever and only a second.

I knew exactly how it would end, knew that I would be alright, unharmed. But when it came, that feeling of slamming back into my body, a feral scream ripped out of me and it was all I could do to crush my panic against the pillow.

I lay face down, suffocating my fears for longer than I'd like to admit. I cried and shrieked and let out all that had been coiled inside me in the nightmare. My hands dug into the fabric of the pillow until my nails poked holes in it, and even then I screamed.

I was sweating and out of breath by the time I calmed down. Ashamed.

This had been one of my worst Wakings yet. They were only getting worse.

I rubbed a hand against my eyes and sat up, my feet dangling off the edge of the bed. It was chilly outside and, even though the heater of the house was on, I could tell the floor was cold.

It was bliss when my bare feet touched the tiles. Sensation. I let out a breath—I could feel something apart from the numbness.

I made my way downstairs slowly, carefully, and my legs were still shaking when I flipped the kitchen light on. I grabbed a glass from the cabinet and turned on the tap water. Germs and diseases, Dad would say, and then he would shake his head like he just couldn't deal with me.

He never did.

I gulped down the water. I was always thirsty after one of these nightmares, ever since that first time so many years ago.

"Audrey?"

I almost dropped the glass.

Mom stood at the door of the kitchen, framed by the darkness of the living room. Her face was a mosaic of worry lines.

"Honey, are you ok?"

I tensed instantly at her tone, all sweet and concerned, the tone you use to calm a dog before you put it down.

I forced a small, tired smile. "Just needed some water."

"Did you have a nightmare again?"

Yes. _Yes._

"No, Mom. You know I haven't had them in a while." I reclined against the kitchen island, my legs pressing against the wood.

Mom looked only slightly less on guard. She tightened the wrap she had on over her shoulders and stepped closer to me.

"You _are_ ok, right, darling? You would tell me if anything was—" Pause. "Wrong?"

She meant my head, of course. I could see it her eyes, sad and a little frantic, like she couldn't believe her daughter was going to do this to her again.

I wasn't. I definitely wasn't.

"No, Mom." I squeezed her hand, barely colder than mine. "And of course I would tell you."

She smiled at that. It was a pretty smile that didn't reach her eyes and made her look younger. She put an arm around my shoulder for a moment then let go.

"You should go to sleep, Ace. We're going shopping tomorrow."

I nudged her. "That would be today, Mom."

But I went back to my room all the same. The night lamp was on, a soft purple light that did nothing to keep away the shadows. It'd have to do.

I closed the door behind me, whispering a 'good night' in case Mom was quietly waiting to see if I really would go in. I heard the door to her room click shut a second later.

I plopped down on the windowsill, too restless—_scared—_to go back to bed. I got goosebumps almost immediately. Maybe an oversized shirt wasn't the best thing to wear to bed on cold winter nights.

Especially if you are prone to nightmares.

It wasn't really snowing outside, but the naked trees were swaying with the force of the wind and, every now and then, I could see snowflakes drifting through.

I wondered if this was thanks to Jack.

I could still see him so clearly in my mind—his bare feet and outdated clothing, his blue hoodie, his white hair. He'd looked so out of place and completely comfortable. It had been a real effort to pretend he wasn't there after I'd so blatantly stared at him. I had felt his eyes on my face, like the weather itself had shifted with his focus.

I bent my legs and rested my chin on my knees, like Mom always told us to do when we were rattled.

'If you can comfort yourself, nothing can hurt you, darling,' she'd say. And I would believe her and things would be ok.

But it wasn't working now. It hadn't been working for a long time.

"It would be so much easier if I didn't believe," the words came out like blasphemy, but I knew, deep down, that it was true.

If I didn't believe in the Tooth Fairy or Santa, I wouldn't be having the nightmares. If I couldn't _see_ them, things would be better. So much better.

And now Jack Frost, too.

I hugged myself tighter. Someone else to believe in, someone else who wouldn't care that I even existed.

I glanced at the bed, the soft glow of the night lamp making the sheets purple. There was an image in my head, a memory I was supposed to have forgotten. My parents had paid for expensive drugs to erase these sort of things, and it had been for nothing.

I had been six and I'd just woken up from a nightmare I couldn't remember. I remembered being sleepy, disoriented, and… a mouse.

There had been a mouse on my bed.

I was so young then, so fearless. I'd looked at the rodent, seen his little hat before I could even think of screaming. And in his tiny, tiny hands, a tooth—_my tooth_.

That's when the really bad nightmares had started.

I pressed my palms against my eyes, willing the tears to stay in and the desperation to go down.

I fell back asleep there on the windowsill, lulling myself with thoughts that would not go away. And above all of them was nothing but a blanket of fierceness and frustration.

I _had _to be strong. For Claire and Leo, for Mom, and even for Dad. I couldn't break down again, couldn't leave them like last time. I _wouldn't_ leave them like last time.

It wasn't their fault I still believed.

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A/N: I think I may have to change the rating of this story...

**To the reviewers who don't have a FF account**: Thank you for your lovely comments, I wish I could reply to each of you individually.

To everyone else, I'll reply after I put this up.

Tell me what you think, yeah?


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